Money can’t buy happiness. But it can get you into the theater of the absurd. Donald Trump calls Ted Cruz a liar. Marco Rubio jumps in and also calls Cruz a liar. Cruz responds by saying that it is Trump and Rubio that are misrepresenting the facts. Jeb Bush tries to talk over Donald who grimaces and mocks. This quartet spends more time attacking each other than discussing the issues, a confederacy of prickly self-servers

John Kasich makes a reference to women in kitchens voting for him and that incenses the Republican Party. But Cruz is not done as he fi res a campaign offi cial for doctoring a picture. Jeb proves Trump to be correct when during a meeting Jeb begs the audience to ‘please applaud.’ This was perhaps the lowest energy of the campaign so far. Continue reading →

The now dormant tadjah festival of Guyana had its origins in the Islamic religion of the Indian Shia Muslims who arrived as indentured workers in British Guiana almost two centuries ago which later came to include non-Muslims.

Ironically, it was this national inclusion,to the disapproval of colonial authorities, which would lead to the festival becoming extinct on the local religious calendar today.

The history of the tadjah

The Guyanese tadjah was a procession of mourners marking the anniversary of the assassination of Hussain, who was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammed.

The first month of the Islamic New Year, Muharram, is one of the four sacred months in Islam. The tenth day of Muharram is the day of Ashura, which is considered to be a very important day in the Islamic calendar. Continue reading →

Hillary Clinton won a remarkable 87 per cent of the black vote, better than Barack Obama did in 2008.

Hillary Clinton sailed to a commanding victory over Bernie Sanders in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, drawing overwhelming support from the state’s black Democrats and putting her in strong position for Super Tuesday’s crucial contests. (Feb. 27)

HOUSTON—Hillary Clinton demolished Bernie Sanders by nearly 50 percentage points in South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary on Saturday, demonstrating an overwhelming supremacy with African-Americans that could cripple Sanders’s candidacy in the next three weeks. Continue reading →

Commentary: The View from Europe: The good, the bad and the ugly – Mr Trump and the Caribbean

Published on February 27, 2016 – By David Jessop

Globalisation touches us all. Its reach extends far beyond economic issues. It has in just a few decades made industries, markets, cultures, policy-making and criminality interconnected in ways previously unknown.

David Jessop

As global networks have spread, trade and investment, communications, migration, the environment and transportation have made almost every nation virtually borderless. It is a process that is organic and unstoppable, but demonstrably has led to vast inequalities between those who have prospered and those who have not.

It has left many feeling disadvantaged and marginalised, resulting in a form of rage against elites, the establishment and those who lead in many parts of the world, although not as yet in the Caribbean. Continue reading →

FLORIDA, United States, Thursday February 25, 2016, IPS – At this stage of the process that began in December 2014 with the surprise announcement of the opening of relations between the United States and Cuba, hardly anything counts as spectacular news. The detail in the decision by Washington and Havana that made news in the traditional sense (man bites dog) was that the plan to sit down and talk implied that Cuba gave up its prior demand that the embargo be lifted. The United States, for its part, accepted that Cuba did not undertake to make any special changes to its own political system.

Since then, each side has been following a basic script that should one day lead to complete opening. All we need ask ourselves is what U.S. President Barack Obama has to gain with his visit to Cuba on 21-22 March, a decision not without risks, and what might be the motivation for its early date. The key is as much the forthcoming Cuban calendar as that of the United States. Continue reading →